45 years later, Maazel’s on Met podium

When Lorin Maazel conducts the opening of the revival of Wagner’s “Die Walkuere” at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on Jan. 7, it will be his first appearance at the Met since January 1963 -- when he was 32 years old. The company believes Maazel’s absence is the longest gap between appearances for an individual in its history.

“At that time I don’t think there was anybody as young as I [was] in the orchestra. Now I don’t think there’s anyone as old in the orchestra as I am,” the 77-year-old maestro said after Wednesday’s opening orchestra rehearsal. “It’s not that I wasn’t asked before. But what they proposed was either not to my liking, or I wasn’t free.”

Maazel will be the first person to conduct at the Met while serving as music director of the New York Philharmonic since Leonard Bernstein led a new production of Verdi’s “Falstaff” in 1964.